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Ghoul Friday

Snow is falling lightly in Toronto. Many of you south of the border are napping from last night's turkey before noshing on more today. Some of you are feeling the Black Friday shopping craze (which boggles my mind).

We're on the edge of December, and a time when we get swept up in the chaos of life, and sometimes lose sight of our actual goals. I've already caught myself doing it.

I've finally transformed my workspace into a coherent, easy-to-use, (almost) everything-in-one-place, and (thanks to my mother who surprised me with some storage cubes that even have LABELS on the handles) find-it-in-a-moment room for an aspiring artist.

I was even able to finish the commission piece and send off another Christmas order this week.

And still, I found myself a bit anxious this morning. Yes, there's more work for me to accomplish before Christmas, but nothing I can't achieve at a steady pace. I believe I haven't been able to shift gears from warp drive because while I've accomplished a lot, my mind is already worrying about the season: dinner planning, relative visiting, present buying, bill paying...you know the drill.

I sat down at the desk, trying to shake this feeling of being overwhelmed by phantom "must do" lists that I can't do anything about right now, and I spotted the framed quote I keep hanging beside my monitor.

It was my great, great Aunt's. I often forget it's there. I've read it a hundred times, but every time I read it, I nod as if I'm learning something new.

So I've snapped the picture above to share it with all of you. I think it's fitting for this time of year before we give in to the madness.

I've been getting a number of messages regarding my vanishing act. Here's the low down.

I thought once Halloween hit, life would slow down as it usually does. Instead, it's done just the opposite, and I haven't had time to catch my breath. Any spare moment I have had has been dedicated to reorganizing the storage of my art supplies, finished pieces, works in progress, and all the things I use for my table displays at shows (mainly finding logical spots to store them during the off season. Only so much fits under the bed. I'm crowding the actual monsters under there, squishing them between the necklace stand and the oversized narrow white bin. They are very unhappy with me).

My story doesn't get much more interesting from this point on, but people who appreciate the art of organizing might want to check out the pictures below.

When I say organize, I mean just short of printing out labels, people. I didn't have money to buy new containers or anything fancy like that, but instead I rearranged and stacked furniture, and put to use every small tupperware container I owned.

I've been living with piles of plastic bags, bursting with one type of art material or another, hidden throughout the room (heck, throughout the entire main floor), and it felt like they were falling in on me. I didn't know where anything was, and I'd have to go on a treasure hunt to find them.

Now, almost everything is in one spot, and it's incorporated into the space so I don't have to see it.

Yesterday I went to pick up a parcel at the post office. I'd missed the delivery and now had to bring my ticket to pick it up. The name on the ticket they left was G. Friday.

I paused, and scribbled something down on a piece of paper, laughing at myself for doing so, and slipped the paper in my pocket.

The lineup at the post-office was huge, and it seemed a comedy of errors was taking place before me. Ludicrous conflicts combined with a pleasant but not-so-bright postal employee makes for frustrations. I petted the paper in my pocket, thinking to myself again that it was silly and I wouldn't need it.

I get to the front of the line, take out my driver's license, and the woman retrieves my package. She looks to my license, to the package, and back to me. "How do you know...Ghoul Friday?"

I blink. Really? Really? You were expecting someone to produce I.D. with Ghoul Friday on it to pick this package up? I.D. which, of course, I don't have.

Now I have one of two options: I can try to explain to this person that she is my artist/pen name, and suffer the ridiculousness I'd witnessed in front of me that was suffered by earlier patrons, and hold up the line more, or...or I could pull out the piece of paper that's in my pocket.

Want to know the story behind this picture? Then you'll have to head over to ShellHawk's Nest. She was kind enough to ask me to write a guest post about a Halloween memory, and my favourite memory is captured in that one image.

I normally don't post images of myself, but I thought I would make an exception for Shell. Plus, the glory of the caterpillar costume should not be hidden any longer.

Be sure to nose around her site for a while. She's gathered an interesting collection of guest posts, and I've enjoyed reading everyone's stories so far. It's perfect for getting you into the Halloween mood.

I don't know how I come across on the blog, but I generally feel fairly insignificant in my role as artist in the world. No, this isn't a "woe as me" statement. It's actually not even a classically Canadian self-deprecating statement. It's a simple fact. I mean, you folks know me, but it's not like I'm being stopped as I walk the streets of Toronto by people saying "Aren't you Ghoul Friday?". Halloween lovers and fellow haunters know my blog and my handle, but that's different. I'm part of an online community.

I'm talking about my presence amongst the masses, the folks I see in 3-D. The ones who can actually pick up my pieces, turning them in their hands, and not just rely on images I've uploaded.

And I always think I'll never see the people who buy from me ever again. Even if I did, I imagined it would be a passing "Hey, I know you. You're the eyeball lady".

This Sunday from 11 to 7 is the 3rd celebration of The Bazaar of the Bizarre - a bona-fide Halloween marketplace! Kid friendly and with some prizes to win as well.

Where: 6 Noble Street (Queen st. West of Dufferin) Toronto, Ontario

Cost: FREE

It is a marketplace filled with amazing vendors: artists, designers, craft-folk, publishers and other independent makers of all things exotic, whimsical and macabre are assembled to attack your senses.

And of course, I'll have a table as well. I only have one more show after this one in October, so now is the time to come on out!

Need more incentive? Ok. The first person to come to my table and tell me they are dressing up as Super Grover for Halloween will get a small secret treat. Could be a cookie. Could be a sticker. Could be something from my table made of clay *wink wink, nudge nudge, head bob*. Could be a swizzle stick from Vegas. Who knows! Just walk up and tell me you're dressing up as Super Grover for Halloween. That's how easy it is.

I'm back after a week of radio silence! My gosh, what a terrible time to come down with a bug, and it left me hiding under covers in the dark. I've lost a week of work at the busiest time of the year, and I am once again behind in posts and emails.

But I'm back! Let's see if I can make up for lost time.

Most importantly, I need to talk about the show I am doing Friday Sept.24 - that's TONIGHT (writing this post at 2:21 am) - called POP WITH BRAINS. Takes place at The Rivoli 334 Queen St. W. Toronto, ON. It starts at 9 pm and costs $5 at the door with proceeds going to support CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health).

Five bands are playing: Northamorica, The Box Tiger, Fast Romantics, Rodrigo Wilde, and The Peace Leeches. Plus The FranDiscos spinning between sets.

As I said, It's been 3 years since I first published a blog post on this site. Since then, the online world for a Halloween lover has evolved into an entirely different creature. And at least my blog, if not my entire site, has changed along with it. I wonder how many of you can relate.

Computer years are like dog years. One year equals the equivalent of 7 human years.

The story actually starts closer to 4 years ago, since I spent months getting the site ready before it launched. I met a boy who built websites. Real websites. And he said he'd build one for me and teach me how to use it (remember, things like Google's version of Blogger were still in Beta in 2006. They had just figured out how to let people post photos on their blogs, but it still wasn't user-friendly for newbies and non-tech folk like it is now. Unless you were into computers, you likely didn't even know about it).

I'd recently discovered various Haunter forums on the web (who were still in many ways fledglings at the time too). I was hungry for more Halloween resources. And I was still frustrated.